Harry Potter actor sentenced to community service

LONDON (Reuters) - A judge on Tuesday ordered actor Jamie Waylett, who plays school bully Vincent Crabbe in the “Harry Potter” movies, to serve 120 hours of community service after he admitted growing cannabis at his mother’s home.

District judge Timothy Workman told Waylett, who turned 20 on Tuesday, that the cannabis cultivation was on a small, but sophisticated scale.

“Mr. Waylett, I accept that the cultivation of this cannabis was on a small scale, and this was not in any way a commercial venture on your part,” Workman told the City of Westminster Magistrates Court.

“Nevertheless you used a sophisticated growing system to do so,” he was quoted as saying by the Press Association.

“I give you credit for pleading guilty at the earliest opportunity, your co-operation with police and the fact that you are, until now, a man of good character. I propose to deal with this by imposing a sentence of 120 hours of unpaid work.”

Waylett was arrested with a friend after he took a photo of police as the pair drove past officers. When police searched his friend’s car they found a number of bags of cannabis.

Ten cannabis plants were later discovered at the home of Waylett’s mother in Kilburn, northwest London.

Waylett’s friend, John Innis, who admitted illegally possessing 11 bags of cannabis and a knife, was sentenced to six weeks’ custody in a young offenders’ institution, and fined 500 pounds ($821.85).